Virendra Doshi, a senior java developer at online fashion retailer Net-a-Porter, hacked the Google Glass headset so the QR scanner can be used to bring up additional images of clothes.

By
Sam Shead
| Dec 09, 2014

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A developer at online fashion retailer Net-a-Porter has won an in house Google Glass hackathon for his QR code concept.

The hack, created over two days by java developer Virendra Doshi, involved putting QR codes next to products in the company’s Porter magazine so that Google Glass wearers can view the item they want to buy from multiple angles.

“One of the things with the magazine is the experience of looking at a product is quite static - you only see the product as it’s photographed,” Doshi told Techworld. “My hack was to print out a QR code and stick it on the page of the magazine. Google Glass can recognise the QR code so it knows the product. The screen then loads up additional images which you can scroll through to see different angle shots.”

The hackathons at Net-a-Porter run three to four times a year. They’re generally seen as an opportunity for developers to think outside the box and come up with blue-sky ideas that can ultimately lead to new innovation within an enterprise.

Net-a-Porter was the first third-party retailer to start selling Google Glass in the UK but the digital-first company it is yet to announce whether it will have an app on the wearable headset, or other wearable devices like the Apple Watch.

Any decision to build a Net-a-Porter wearable app is likely to be made by the company’s executives. However, Matthew Green, who studied computer science at Oxford University before enrolling on the Net-a-Porter graduate programme, said: “Things like watches are becoming more popular but everything else to me feels like it’s in its very early stages of its lifecycle.”